hope for things to come
Advent is over looked too often - with the commercialism and the presents and the Christmas carols playing on the radio since the beginning of November - but this year it is beating a refrain in my blood: Waiting. Hoping. Waiting. Hoping. Personally, I have 12 more days of count down and to do lists and dreaming and trying to be present (at work and in Richmond) before beginning my travels and adventure in the Middle East. Packing lists and Christmas lists and grad school application lists. Work events and friends to see and wedding things to plan. Books to read and making time to mentally prepare for trauma and stories and new narratives and cultures. And then the plight of the world, the hopelessness and despair, the racism and consumerism and global climate change, and the awful, awful politics and I find myself singing advent songs as prayers. Praying for emmanuel (god with us) to bring change - some how, some way - even when it is the "Christians" with "Christ...